Never In Her Wildest Dreams
by Sandzombie
Summary: Set Post-Endgame. Some one's dream may be another's nightmare and Never in Seven's wildest dreams had she ever imagined that it would be like this.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing but my words and the colorful knee high socks I am so very fond of.

**A/N:** _This was written as a challenge to stir up the Muses by Ronda on VAMB._

_(The challenge being: __The story can be any pairing, any rating, any type.  
It must start: In _'s wildest dreams he/she had never imagined that it would be like this.  
You fill in the blank with whatever name you choose.)_

_So naturally there were entries and then there was… __**Ghosteye_99**__'s entry which is the sole inspiration for this piece. (Aside from the prompt of course.)_

_**A/N:**__ I recommend that you PM __**Ghosteye_99**__ for her piece. It was very, very nice. (After all, it inspired this.)_

_Here goes:_

In Seven's wildest dreams she had never imagined that it would be like this.

This... sudden shift of the earth beneath her feet. As if the very ground she stood on began to crumble and disintegrate all about her.

She maintained eye contact. Dissecting the growing sensation of confusion...or was that betrayal? Flowering in the pit of her stomach.

No.

Her mind, she corrected. The mind is where emotions were formed. Chemical compositions that forced an individuals hand in one direction or another. Her Mind in which most things were insulated, efficiently labeled and summarize for most effective use. Her mind. No other body part as humans often misspoke.

Leading to confusions and errs in judgment.

Her mind is where this yawning secretion of unwanted emotion was hemorrhaging from. Causing her heart to beat in this slow painful rhythm and every breath to be a conscious effort.

Her eyes welled up and she blinked rapidly, an effort to dispel the sign of weakness. The crack in façade...the crack in... her.

"I am sorry." he still held her hand. Gently as before but it was different now. It no longer felt tender and affectionate, now tainted somehow. She wondered if it had ever been.

"Yes." Her voice was even, collected. She would be proud if she could feel anything past the pressure in her chest, making it so very difficult to catch her breath, everything in her world now seemed somehow off-kilter again. The way it is at extreme height, when the air becomes thin and your blood-vessels don't swell with enough oxygen.

"You deserve to be loved..." he hesitated. "Completely." he finished, his words careful and deliberate. "I do not think, that is something I can offer you. I..."

"Do you mean, that you cannot offer me what you feel for _Her_?" his eyes widened in surprise, not just because of my interruption. Perhaps he thought I had not noticed.

How ignominious, To assume that because I could not feel certain emotions first hand that I would not observe them in others.

Erroneous on two fronts.

"Seven, I.." his eyes were sad. But not as sad as I had seen them when she walked away at the home coming gala. When she had given us a half hearted insincere smile, her eyes flickering downwards at our joined hands. She walked briskly away, her back straight and shoulders set, under the pretence of making an address but she was careful not to encounter us the rest of the night. Not even with her gaze.

"Please," Is this what it is like without the safety-net? This alternation of hurt and anger? She half regret not having it.

But only half.

By the time the anger makes its way back the adrenaline makes it difficult to school her features. She does not regret it any longer. "Leave." She manages, throat constricting, making her voice hoarser than usual.

Perhaps it appeals to him more now.

The bitter thought catches her by surprise.

"Seven..." he tries again, but she does not read repent in any of his features. She has found that he has very telling eyes. They do not veil his emotions the way hers do when she knows we are watching. Again, she cannot help but wonder if he ever had felt anything for _me_. "Please. Leave." Seven remembers B'Elanna at this odd moment of all. She remembers her, and she remembers her never ending struggles with her emotions and at this very moment in time she wants to _be_her. She, at this very moment in time wants to be her so badly that if she had any oxygen left to donate to the cause would, willingly.

She has taken B'Elanna's control for granted for entirely to long. She wants to be her. She wants to be anyone else. Everyone else.

She wants to be human, to have an understanding of what this all means and what to do to make it go away.

She wants to be Vulcan and compartmentalize it, place it in a neat, clean little corner and visit it only when it will assist her in self growth.

She wants to be Borg again, and have thousands of voices help drown out the deep hurt that feels as if it is emanating from her very core.

She want to be _her_.

But for all the wrong reasons. Because she would not have to deal with this aching confusion and uncertainty. Seven feels torn between laughing and crying at that thought. If I were _her_at this very moment it would be much worse I'd think. Unlike B'Elanna, Janeway does not have a Tom to place her back to, unlike Tuvok she does not have the unyielding resolve to compartmentalize into.

She is human. She feels. Even when she does not allow us to see.

0-0-0

I might understand now, in retrospect the Doctor's words when he told me. "Time is the best healer." But I can't help the pang that resonates when I see them at the reunion. It has been nearly a year but when the gleam of the stones on her finger, catches my eye it reminds me of all those horrible emotions I felt that night. They are arranged in such a strange fashion, the stones.

Familiar in a way.

I look away when pulls her close, his arms wrapping around her in a gesture of intimacy that reflects a bit more than a sheer friendly embrace would.

I am torn between the dull ache buried deep, nearly forgotten and elation at the smile on her face. Natural and free.

But that ache...still lingers. Remnants from the night Chakotay disintegrated out romantic alliance.

In simple words it seems so forgettable now, so meandrable. But I know differently.

I know what it took.

Out of me.

Out of him.

It is the way his eyes become lit with a joy that I have never seen that stings the most. The way they never did when he looked at me. I try my hardest not to let the sting reflect in my own features.

Its strange in a way, but it seems that half the work of being human is masking your emotions.

Luckily this feeling is fleeting.

Or at least it becomes that when I catch a glimpse of her eyes, her expression from my vantage point at the bar. The sheer liberated, uncompromising look of utter delectation that she radiates from them as she picks up Miral before Tom and B'Elanna's feet, the little girls arms outstretched for her from her place on the ground. Chakotay's arm holding on to her waist relaxed and unyielding in an eerily balanced way.

Time was in fact a great healer. I smile as Harry places a hand over mine. Bringing my attention back to the conversation at hand.

"Is that a yes or a no?" his eyes betrayed the confident tone of his voice. I like it.

"Yes." I said, glancing down at his hand over mine. "If it will not impose your mother." My hand turns so that our fingers can intertwine in what I know is a tender, affectionate grasp.

His face becomes a lit with excitement. "She loves you, she will be happy to know you will be with us for the holidays."

I glance back at Kathryn and Chakotay. She is still holding Miral in her arms, a wide smile on her face and she glows with happiness.

I regret nothing.

I think back once more on ...that night and I look at Harry, his eyes betraying every feeling on his... Mind.

Somehow that ache is less.

Somehow, I am glad to be me and even in my wildest dreams, I had never imagined it would be like this.


End file.
